


These Are the Days to Come

by Jade_Dragoness



Category: Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-14
Updated: 2011-04-14
Packaged: 2017-10-19 01:19:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Dragoness/pseuds/Jade_Dragoness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are the days to come. Molly POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Are the Days to Come

I don’t often get to see my old teacher these days. Our paths in life have diverged so much that I only see him maybe once every couple of years, if I’m lucky. At least, for visits that are just for the pure joy of it.

I get to see him a lot more often as part of my duties, but that’s always work, work, work.

“Grasshopper,” he greeted me. “Oh, sorry. Should I be calling you Captain Grasshopper, now?”

I grinned at him and caught him in a tight hug.

“Oomph, Molly, I need to breathe!” he protested when I squeezed.

“That‘s for calling me, Captain Grasshopper,” I said mock-seriously and released him. “You look good, Harry.”

He did. He looked like a happy and relaxed forty year old. I, on the other hand, looked like his mother with my blonde hair gone mostly grey. But his slow aging has caught us all off-guard. We weren’t certain exactly why. Harry has faced so many terrible beings over the years, and he’d been affected by so many different magics that any one of them could have been the cause.

Personally, I blamed his mantle as Knight of the Winter Fae Court. I thought that it somehow had taken Harry’s already long lifespan was increased even further. But I had no proof, just a feeling. His age had been slow down after he’d taken it up.

I was one hundred and three, and looked about sixty. With all the time that Harry spent in the Nevernever, he was about twice my age and didn’t come close to looking it. Bastard.

“I‘m so happy you‘re here,” I continued, smiling.

“I‘d say the same thing, but I know why you really asked me to come,” he teased, his brown eyes twinkling with humor. “I‘m trainee wrangling again, aren‘t I?”

“I‘m just evoking the help of one of the most senior members of the White Council,” I said innocently. “Didn‘t the Merlin‘s message explain it to you?”

“Ha!” he said. “Carlos just said you needed me for something. Then he went on about how he was too gorgeous to be the one to do it. That his visage was too powerful, that the trainees would just mob him and on and on and on.”

I grinned. I believed him: the Merlin could get long-winded like that, especially with someone he‘d known for decades. “Yeah,” I admitted, “I did ask for your help. I want you to scare the hell out of the bunch of trainees I‘ve got. I‘ve got some pretty stubborn ones this year who are absolutely convinced they know better than their instructors. And since they‘re almost ready to move on to the next level if they can get past this hump and… well, you‘re my last hope.”

“So I‘m the big, bad bogeyman, this time?” Harry asked, amused.

I nodded.

I freely admit that I was abusing my relationship with him because Harry normally doesn’t interact much with most wizards anymore. But Harry was so very good at getting through to stubborn, self-righteous students. He’d done it with me, more than once, so I knew he was more than capable of teaching my kids a thing or two.

Harry was a legend. The very idea of meeting him could send grown wizards into a tizzy, which never stopped being funny. So I usually used a meeting with him as a reward for the Warden trainees. But every once in a while, I got a few kids that thought they knew better than us old geezers.

That’s when I sent them to face the power of Harry Dresden. It was the equivalent of using a nuclear bomb on rabbits, but some trainees needed to learn the hard way that there was always, _always_ someone bigger, meaner and much more powerful than they were out there. And that thinking otherwise would get them killed. They needed to learn that a Warden’s best fighting assent was his or her brains, not just the power they commanded. Fight smarter not harder, as my teacher always told me.

And I’d make sure they learned it. No matter how hard I had to get it knocked into their head. I’ve lost too many friends as it is.

I turned back to the five trainees that were shooting us puzzled looks. I’d made them stay about thirty feet away while I talked to Harry, so they had no idea who he really was. Good.

As I walked towards them I hardened my expression. Harry followed at my side. “Trainees. This is Harry Dresden. He will be your opponent today.”

I held in a grin as five young faces paled.

Harry snickered under his breath. I resisted the impulse to elbow him.

“You have one task,” I continued sternly. I pointed to the woods. “Survive for the next five hours.” Wide-eyes stared back at us. “Go!” I barked.

Four kids turned and ran into the woods. The last trainee, a dark-skinned young man with gorgeous hazel eyes who’d just turned twenty years old, gave me a lazy salute and sauntered into the trees.

“Hmm,” Harry said.. “I take it that‘s your apprentice.”

I sighed. “Yes. The stubborn idiot, he‘s the ringleader that‘s giving me so much trouble. I swear I was never that bad.”

Harry smirked.

“I wasn‘t!” I protested.

Harry nodded agreeably and shot me a grin as he ambled off into the woods. “Just keep telling yourself that, grasshopper.” After a beat he vanished behind a veil that left nothing behind.

I snorted in wry amusement as I followed after him, sliding behind a veil myself so that the kids wouldn’t see me. This wouldn’t take very long. Then Harry and I could spend the rest of the day catching up.

Well, after we patched up any injuries the kids picked up, and ran them through a lecture on what they’d done wrong. And maybe once they stopped pouting we’ll take them out for food.

But only if they managed to last at least an hour.

I felt a flare of magic and saw blue-green sparks shooting up into the air like a flare.

Okay, make that thirty minutes.

End.

**Author's Note:**

> Written because I wanted to see who and what Molly would be in the future. As you can tell, I'm really in favor of Warden Molly.


End file.
